I made a mistake several days ago when lamenting Peter Orszag's decision to take a senior job with Citibank, reportedly for several million dollars per year, so soon after leaving a senior Obama Administration post. Over the past two-plus years, Obama (and GW Bush) policies played a crucial role in saving Citi -- and in not holding its executives (or other senior financial-world figures) accountable for polices that brought on the world financial crisis or reining in top-end pay as profitability has returned. Now a senior member of the Obama team -- Orszag was budget director -- was going straight to one of those top-end jobs, even as his former colleagues in the administration have their hands full fighting the social, economic, and political effects of the crisis on "ordinary" Americans who can't find jobs or are losing their homes.

My mistake was not in pointing out this problem, nor in identifying it as the kind of thing that is notable precisely because no one even stops to remark on it any more. It was in the sentence that said, "Objectively this is both damaging and shocking." That's the difference between one-draft web postings and many-times-edited print articles. What I meant was, "Politically this is damaging and should be shocking." Because the real point is that official Washington should notice this instance of structural corruption -- but won't.

If you're wondering just how taken for granted such arrangements are in today's Washington/ Versailles, here's a data point. The Washington Post, still aspiring to be official journal of politics, has not published a single story about Orszag's new job. Here is what its search function shows just now:

"Please try another search" indeed. How about "things that are depressing"? To their credit, the Post's Ezra Klein and Ed O'Keefe each had one-line links on their sites, pointing to (respectively) the NYT "Dealbook" and Reuters stories on Orszag. (And those links come up if you search the Post's site for "Orszag Citigroup." Otherwise there appears to have been no "news" coverage by the Post. Klein also had this follow-up link to an item called "Our Peter Orszag Problem" on the Economist's site.) The gap between the things the Post considers "scandals," and a development like this, so taken for granted as not to merit mention, says too much about our politics.

Or, consider a Google News chart of coverage of the story. There's a little flurry when the deal was announced (a "real" story would generate vastly more coverage), then... it goes away. Pathetically, the "C" on that chart is my own original item on the story -- with nothing in the mainstream press since then. The chart doesn't show mainstream press results after Dec 11, because there don't seem to be any.

Here's a reader reaction:

>>I think the situation is even worse than you suggest. Many of us who supported the idea of a bailout for the reason you suggest -- the likely negative consequences of not bailing them out were terrifying -- urged that the bailout be conditioned on major changes in the size and operations of the financial sector behemoths who'd become too big to fail. The Volcker rule was one example. Serious changes in compensation practices. Breaking up of these banks was possible and desirable. Strict regulation of derivatives. And so on.

The final outcome, however, has been pathetically inadequate, if the goal was to prevent another crisis like 2008. And Orszag signing up with Citi for several million $ per year puts that policy failure in even worse light. What chance is there that the government will get tough on the big banks when key economic policy makers move back and forth between government and those banks?

Two more reader reactions after the jump. Eventually I'll publish a few defenses of Orszag that have come in. Really, I don't have anything against him personally, though I think this was a big misjudgment. What I can't get away from is the two twinned aspects of taking this move for granted. From the "elite" level -- the editors who decide not to put it in the paper -- taking it for granted means: Sure, that's reasonable, what else would you expect? And from everyone else's level, taking it for granted means: Sure, that's how the world works. Them that has, gets. What else would you expect?

Another reader writes:

>>I agree with you totally about the structural corruption
inherent in Orzag's move. But it is a localized corruption: the
corruption of Wall Street and its corruption of politics. Say Orzag had
taken a several million dollar a year job for "strategic advising" with
Kraft or Google. We might smirk a bit but mostly shrug our shoulders
and wonder what those companies would think they're getting. And that's
the key: those companies would be highly unlikely to hire someone like
Orzag, with no corporate or manufacturing experience, at that level.
Only Wall Street. And therein lies the true corruption.<<

And another:

>>Mr. Orszag is one of the brighter
lights in public service, but this move just reinforces all of the
cynicism that many Americans feel. While the Obama administration
certainly talks about the disenfranchised, Orszag's move to Citi looks
like the same old same old. Republican or Democrat, liberal or
conservative, the important thing is to become one of the members of the
club, and trade on influence and access. It's a revolting revolving
door. I'm sure Orszag was committed to public policy, but this move
makes it look like the really important thing is making big bucks to be
able to live the Hamptons life. Sarah Palin, another money grabber,
gets some vindication when people like Orszag make these choices. Her
rhetoric about the "elites" (see Administration to New York Times to
Citi), while silly and clumsy, starts to have some resonance. I can't
get my head around it, but as a basically moderate Republican small
businessman, I'm starting to really think Wall Street and D.C. are
playing us for suckers.<<

OK, rather than saving it, here's the most impassioned defense of Orszag, from a current law student. For the record, I don't agree with this, but I'll leave it to readers to judge for themselves.

>>My comment is probably something you are aware of, so I don't mean to sound condescending, but any acknowledgment of it was absent your recent post regarding Peter Orszag.

It is neither structural nor personal corruption that leads government officials to leave the government and fall into lucrative private sector jobs. This is just how it works, and there is no corruption involved at all: Orszag is a brilliant man, and his skills are in high demand, as is his reputation. It is not corruption for a man to be compensated according to the prestige and cachet his pedigree deserves.

As a law student, I tend to think of this more in terms of the legal world and talented lawyers and the like but just consider:

1: the obvious. Michael Luttig left his prestigious, coveted, highly sought-after post as a federal judge to become the general counsel for Boeing. In so doing, he went from earning around $200,000 per year to well over a million dollars a year. One is hard pressed to say that this is corrupt. If someone can make five times more money, especially in our uncertain economic climate, how can you fault them?

2: Chief Justice Roberts went from various relatively low-earning positions in the Reagan and Bush executive branch to a partnership at Hogan and Hartson, earning about a million dollars a year. Is this corruption? His skills were in high demand, and a world-class firm wanted him. Was he to ignore such offers because it somehow seems corrupt?

I could go on but I think the point is made: it is a false and unfair 'populist' argument to assert that anyone who leaves a government post for a lucrative private job is somehow corrupt. I mean, that is the basic premise of your article but I'm sure if you thought about it you would realize how simplistic and wrongly idealistic it turns out to be. If your point was timing, it is simply a ridiculous and immature point to make: if its wrong now, it's always wrong. If not, then it is never wrong. Otherwise you merely patronize peoples' sense of outrage and its correlation to timing.

If your point was that it is wrong for government officials in general to benefit from their government affiliation in the private sector after leaving, you must necessarily expand your scope to such an extent that your argument becomes ridiculous: no more can retired military officers serve on boards; no more can former DoJ lawyers serve as law firm partners; no more can former government economists serve as bank executives; and even former federal judicial clerks can no longer accept signing bonuses from law firms. I apologize for the legal orientation of these objections, but just think about it. Government for better or worse is the true seat of American power, and the fact that is does not compensate as such necessarily means that that compensation must come from elsewhere. There is no evidence that the private riches a former government official can earn are directly related to any influence or otherwise corrupt sway a former federal employee may have over the government.

The more sensible interpretation is that former federal officials have an impressive and rare credential on their resumes, and therefore must be compensated accordingly. Why else do former presidents make more off of speaking engagements than do the average person? It is a simple answer to a banal question, and I think your article really deserved more thought before it was published.<<

About the Author

James Fallows is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and has written for the magazine since the late 1970s. He has reported extensively from outside the United States and once worked as President Carter's chief speechwriter. His latest book is China Airborne.

Most Popular

Should you drink more coffee? Should you take melatonin? Can you train yourself to need less sleep? A physician’s guide to sleep in a stressful age.

During residency, Iworked hospital shifts that could last 36 hours, without sleep, often without breaks of more than a few minutes. Even writing this now, it sounds to me like I’m bragging or laying claim to some fortitude of character. I can’t think of another type of self-injury that might be similarly lauded, except maybe binge drinking. Technically the shifts were 30 hours, the mandatory limit imposed by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, but we stayed longer because people kept getting sick. Being a doctor is supposed to be about putting other people’s needs before your own. Our job was to power through.

The shifts usually felt shorter than they were, because they were so hectic. There was always a new patient in the emergency room who needed to be admitted, or a staff member on the eighth floor (which was full of late-stage terminally ill people) who needed me to fill out a death certificate. Sleep deprivation manifested as bouts of anger and despair mixed in with some euphoria, along with other sensations I’ve not had before or since. I remember once sitting with the family of a patient in critical condition, discussing an advance directive—the terms defining what the patient would want done were his heart to stop, which seemed likely to happen at any minute. Would he want to have chest compressions, electrical shocks, a breathing tube? In the middle of this, I had to look straight down at the chart in my lap, because I was laughing. This was the least funny scenario possible. I was experiencing a physical reaction unrelated to anything I knew to be happening in my mind. There is a type of seizure, called a gelastic seizure, during which the seizing person appears to be laughing—but I don’t think that was it. I think it was plain old delirium. It was mortifying, though no one seemed to notice.

Why the ingrained expectation that women should desire to become parents is unhealthy

In 2008, Nebraska decriminalized child abandonment. The move was part of a "safe haven" law designed to address increased rates of infanticide in the state. Like other safe-haven laws, parents in Nebraska who felt unprepared to care for their babies could drop them off in a designated location without fear of arrest and prosecution. But legislators made a major logistical error: They failed to implement an age limitation for dropped-off children.

Within just weeks of the law passing, parents started dropping off their kids. But here's the rub: None of them were infants. A couple of months in, 36 children had been left in state hospitals and police stations. Twenty-two of the children were over 13 years old. A 51-year-old grandmother dropped off a 12-year-old boy. One father dropped off his entire family -- nine children from ages one to 17. Others drove from neighboring states to drop off their children once they heard that they could abandon them without repercussion.

Since the end of World War II, the most crucial underpinning of freedom in the world has been the vigor of the advanced liberal democracies and the alliances that bound them together. Through the Cold War, the key multilateral anchors were NATO, the expanding European Union, and the U.S.-Japan security alliance. With the end of the Cold War and the expansion of NATO and the EU to virtually all of Central and Eastern Europe, liberal democracy seemed ascendant and secure as never before in history.

Under the shrewd and relentless assault of a resurgent Russian authoritarian state, all of this has come under strain with a speed and scope that few in the West have fully comprehended, and that puts the future of liberal democracy in the world squarely where Vladimir Putin wants it: in doubt and on the defensive.

His paranoid style paved the road for Trumpism. Now he fears what’s been unleashed.

Glenn Beck looks like the dad in a Disney movie. He’s earnest, geeky, pink, and slightly bulbous. His idea of salty language is bullcrap.

The atmosphere at Beck’s Mercury Studios, outside Dallas, is similarly soothing, provided you ignore the references to genocide and civilizational collapse. In October, when most commentators considered a Donald Trump presidency a remote possibility, I followed audience members onto the set of The Glenn Beck Program, which airs on Beck’s website, theblaze.com. On the way, we passed through a life-size replica of the Oval Office as it might look if inhabited by a President Beck, complete with a portrait of Ronald Reagan and a large Norman Rockwell print of a Boy Scout.

The same part of the brain that allows us to step into the shoes of others also helps us restrain ourselves.

You’ve likely seen the video before: a stream of kids, confronted with a single, alluring marshmallow. If they can resist eating it for 15 minutes, they’ll get two. Some do. Others cave almost immediately.

This “Marshmallow Test,” first conducted in the 1960s, perfectly illustrates the ongoing war between impulsivity and self-control. The kids have to tamp down their immediate desires and focus on long-term goals—an ability that correlates with their later health, wealth, and academic success, and that is supposedly controlled by the front part of the brain. But a new study by Alexander Soutschek at the University of Zurich suggests that self-control is also influenced by another brain region—and one that casts this ability in a different light.

Modern slot machines develop an unbreakable hold on many players—some of whom wind up losing their jobs, their families, and even, as in the case of Scott Stevens, their lives.

On the morning of Monday, August 13, 2012, Scott Stevens loaded a brown hunting bag into his Jeep Grand Cherokee, then went to the master bedroom, where he hugged Stacy, his wife of 23 years. “I love you,” he told her.

Stacy thought that her husband was off to a job interview followed by an appointment with his therapist. Instead, he drove the 22 miles from their home in Steubenville, Ohio, to the Mountaineer Casino, just outside New Cumberland, West Virginia. He used the casino ATM to check his bank-account balance: $13,400. He walked across the casino floor to his favorite slot machine in the high-limit area: Triple Stars, a three-reel game that cost $10 a spin. Maybe this time it would pay out enough to save him.

A report will be shared with lawmakers before Trump’s inauguration, a top advisor said Friday.

Updated at 2:20 p.m.

President Obama asked intelligence officials to perform a “full review” of election-related hacking this week, and plans will share a report of its findings with lawmakers before he leaves office on January 20, 2017.

Deputy White House Press Secretary Eric Schultz said Friday that the investigation will reach all the way back to 2008, and will examine patterns of “malicious cyber-activity timed to election cycles.” He emphasized that the White House is not questioning the results of the November election.

Asked whether a sweeping investigation could be completed in the time left in Obama’s final term—just six weeks—Schultz replied that intelligence agencies will work quickly, because the preparing the report is “a major priority for the president of the United States.”

“Well, you’re just special. You’re American,” remarked my colleague, smirking from across the coffee table. My other Finnish coworkers, from the school in Helsinki where I teach, nodded in agreement. They had just finished critiquing one of my habits, and they could see that I was on the defensive.

I threw my hands up and snapped, “You’re accusing me of being too friendly? Is that really such a bad thing?”

“Well, when I greet a colleague, I keep track,” she retorted, “so I don’t greet them again during the day!” Another chimed in, “That’s the same for me, too!”

Unbelievable, I thought. According to them, I’m too generous with my hellos.

When I told them I would do my best to greet them just once every day, they told me not to change my ways. They said they understood me. But the thing is, now that I’ve viewed myself from their perspective, I’m not sure I want to remain the same. Change isn’t a bad thing. And since moving to Finland two years ago, I’ve kicked a few bad American habits.

A professor of cognitive science argues that the world is nothing like the one we experience through our senses.

As we go about our daily lives, we tend to assume that our perceptions—sights, sounds, textures, tastes—are an accurate portrayal of the real world. Sure, when we stop and think about it—or when we find ourselves fooled by a perceptual illusion—we realize with a jolt that what we perceive is never the world directly, but rather our brain’s best guess at what that world is like, a kind of internal simulation of an external reality. Still, we bank on the fact that our simulation is a reasonably decent one. If it wasn’t, wouldn’t evolution have weeded us out by now? The true reality might be forever beyond our reach, but surely our senses give us at least an inkling of what it’s really like.

No other place mixes affordability, opportunity, and wealth so well. What’s its secret?

If the American dream has not quite shattered as the Millennial generation has come of age, it has certainly scattered. Living affordably and trying to climb higher than your parents did were once considered complementary ambitions. Today, young Americans increasingly have to choose one or the other—they can either settle in affordable but stagnant metros or live in economically vibrant cities whose housing prices eat much of their paychecks unless they hit it big.

The dissolution of the American dream isn’t just a feeling; it is an empirical observation. In 2014, economists at Harvard and Berkeley published a landmark study examining which cities have the highest intergenerational mobility—that is, the best odds that a child born into a low-income household will move up into the middle class or beyond. Among large cities, the top of the list was crowded with rich coastal metropolises, including San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles, San Diego, and New York City.